Gmail updated with actionable notifications for Jelly Bean users

Google has just updated its Gmail app to include new actionable notifications for incoming email on devices running Jelly Bean. This means that incoming email can be archived, deleted or replied to directly from the notification pane, rather than by entering the app first. Since being introduced in Android 4.1, actionable notifications have been seemingly underutilized compared to simple expandable notifications. It's good to see Google putting the new functionality to use in its own apps.

Many users are unfortunately reporting that this update to Gmail is causing Light Flow -- which controls LED flashing for notifications -- to crash uncontrollably. The only fix seems to be to uninstall the app for the moment, and hopefully the developer can be quick with a fix.

The update also enables faster search on devices with Ice Cream Sandwich, and performance improvements for users on Froyo and up. You can grab a download or update of the official Gmail app from the link above.

Ditto. Updated to the new app, and nothing. Even forced closed and restarted gmail. Still nothing new in the notifications. Running an S3 with 4.1.2. Does this need 4.2 to work?

OK, figured it out. The in-notification icons ONLY show up if you have a single new email. That's pretty darn limited. This seems "much ado about nothing."

Worse, the new email app seems broken. It won't sync automatically. I send myself a test message, and it never arrives. If I go to settings / accounts / Google, it seems to think it's syncing, because it shows me a cancel sync button, but tapping that button does nothing. I have to manually uncheck the sync mail text box, then recheck it, to get the app to sync.

Same here on the HTC Evo LTE w/JB. Sense 4's customized notifications not supporting the expandable/actionable notifications of JB. Oh well, that sux. I wonder if the Samsungs have these JB notification features.

I figured this was related to the Superuser update that I did at the same time. A force stop and disabling of root for Light Flow stopped the crash. Won't know for a while yet just how this impacts stuff.

Hi
Thanks for contacting us. If email is related to Light Flow crashing now that gmail has just been updated we are aware of the issue and for the last few weeks we've been working on an update.

I'm just in the process of building a release to push out to address this.

Thanks for your patience while this is resolved.

I'd also like to say thanks to some of the folk at google who gave us assistance and a heads up on the new version so a fix could be published. It's just a shame google pushed it out while we were still in testing!

Strange...Gizmodo, Engadget and the Gmail blog are all saying 'Archive' while AC and my own phone are showing it as 'Delete'. I prefer deleting, so not a problem...just curious as to why the stories are different.